Tag Archives: Chile

(These words arrived with a delay due to the restrictive communications of the Spanish extermination centers. On March 7th, 2017 Mónica and Francisco were finally released to Chile, where they were greeted with a great deal of media and repressive threats. Finally today, they have returned to the street with their dignity intact.)

Affinity and Solidarity against victimization and authority

In the struggle to break with the establishment we look for and create relationship forms that are contrary to imposition and authority. Forms that help us feel comfortable in order to develop autonomously in our proposals and acts of daily confrontation. With this feeling we understand affinity represents the most suitable way for anarchist relations and that it’s not the fruit of empty slogans repeated until satiation, but the result of practices and shared visions that have helped generate long lasting bonds of passionate friendship and intimacy, that go beyond the simple bonds of just friends.

The trust and care that comes from feeling and knowing that the ideas of permanent rebellion are the sustenance and strength of affinity helps build and develop anti-authoritarian practices. In turn, these ideas, are inseparable from our choice of life, the option that reinforces what we plan and how it is to be done. It is through these relationships that we grow individually and have the undeniable possibility of acts with no strings attached, which impedes the creation of bureaucratic and authoritarian behavior, cutting off the concentration of power.

Critics of this position have signaled that this form makes it impossible to influence “social reality” and that it turns anarchism into a ghetto. Our response is that we don’t understand anarchism as a political party that uses all of its strategies to increase numbers for the purposes of achieving hegemony. We think that the means must be coherent with the ends as it would be contradictory to claim total liberation otherwise. For us, anarchism is, above all, a tension where individual initiative plays a central role, not a production.

As this experience of imprisonment comes to an end we have lived through the birth, the strengthening and reinforcement of relationships of affinity. Our friends have given meaning to the word solidarity filling us with strength and pride. Overcoming many difficulties, we have been able to collaboratively build positions and initiatives of what we’ve learned. The will and determination of our friends, even if this sounds repetitive, has destroyed walls, bars, the space of time, and eliminated obstacles of isolation and communication. We have attempted and believe to be successful in establishing a relationship that breaks away from and is in opposition to the welfare practices where prisoners are viewed as “a poor victim of the system who is the subject of atrocious injustices.” The assumption that, as anarchists we find ourselves in a permanent confrontation with power and that it has its consequences has given possibility to put into practice an active and combative solidarity with a clear and unambiguous line of discourse. The idea – strength of “neither guilty, no innocent, simply anarchist” is reflected in our position against prison and repression both in and outside of their walls. It represents a way of living and being in prison that is linked with intransigence that opens innumerable paths of action for friends in the street, ways which attempt to destroy power by not falling into their categories and contrary to their predatory logic.

When repression represents an opportunity

The repressive wave that materialized in the operations of Pandora and Piñata represented the hardest strike against anarchism in Spain since the 1980s. Their clear attempt was to eliminate a sector of the anarchist movement by quickly moving forward with harassment, persecution, and imprisonment of friends. Evidently, the magnitude of state repression has had its consequences, as could not be otherwise. Many initiatives were put on hold, spaces were literally looted by the repressive fury and the worry of being enveloped into the paranoid fantasies of power created a certain immobility that has little by little began to be overcome.

However, in our opinion, due to the clumsy and inconsistent theory of the police, this strike represents an opportunity to highlight the weaknesses of the State that utilizes classic strategies of imprisonment and intimidation in order to reduce and eliminate those who will not be domesticated. Along with this, we believe that these operations are closely related to the rise of social movements and their incorporation within the institutions; those who refuse to play the game of democracy can await prison. Because of this, it’s important to address what the significance of these strikes and resulting solidarity in terms of understanding the social movements that have transformed into political parties don’t represent, in any way, an ally, rather they are an apparatus of power with whom we have nothing in common.

Throughout the operations of Pandora and Piñata the State has, as previously mentioned on several occasions, attempted to attack ideas and practices that are radically different than it, as evidenced by the fact that none of the imprisoned friends are accused of concrete actions. What they’ve tried to do is punish a way of living, the option of struggle against the established order and permanent anti-authoritarian activity that, that more-or-less, has influenced many spaces and aspects of the milieu. Therefore, the continuing transition on the path of rupture represents, a small victory that demonstrates that the State can show us its worst face, but it can’t bend us. In this regard, we believe that solidarity with the friends imprisoned must necessarily be the transgressor and on the offensive, breaking away from the discourses of pessimism and victimization. The utilization of all of our creativity, limited only by our anarchic principals, is fundamental in strengthening our solidarity. In the war against domination all actions are necessary.

Finally, we would like to send all our love and strength to our German friends held in prison, accused of robbing a bank there, who are currently facing a difficult trail. We are reminded in each instant of the pride and joy they have shown, are also ours and the possibility to be your friend.

Today and always an open hand to friends and a clenched fist to the enemy.

A discussion on the struggle in Chile, clips from the film “The Chicago Conspiracy” and a talk about “The Bombs Case”. Letter writing to Latin American prisoners at end.

Chiacgo Conspiracy:

The documentary addresses the legacy of the military dictatorship in Chile by sharing the story of combatant youth who were killed by the Pinochet regime as a backdrop to the history of the military dictatorship and current social conflict in the area. The larger story is wrapped around three shorter pieces, which explore the student movement, the history of neighborhoods that became centers of armed resistance against the dictatorship, and the indigenous Mapuche conflict. The filmmakers, militant film collective Subversive Action Films, question their relationship to the documentary, taking a position as combatants. See here for more information.

The Bombs Case:

On August 14th, 2010, fourteen anarchists and anti-authoritarians were arrested in a series of raids in Santiago in what became known as the `Bombs Case`. They were accused of a series of bombings against capital and the state that took place around Santiago in the previous years, as well as of “criminal conspiracy” under the Pinochet-era Anti-Terrorist Laws. Since then, following a hunger strike by the prisoners, as well as countless solidarity actions from around the world, the charges against nine of the accused have been dropped (one of these people is facing other charges in a separate trial), but charges against five comrades remain. They are: Omar Hermosilla and Carlos Riveros, accused of providing the money to finance the costs of the attacks, as well as Mónica Caballero, Felipe Guerra, Francisco Solar, accused of the placement of the explosive devices at different points in Santiago. The trial continues.

Like this:

October 26th 2011 - Prisoners on the
second and third floors of the H
wing of the Cárcel de Alta
Seguridad took action and started an
indefinite liquid hunger strike.
This mobilisation has come about
because of the failure of the screws
to comply with past agreements and
the constant harassment of prisoners, as
well as their friends and families.
This is a spontaneous action by 24
prisoners, that is born from the
urgency of their situation.

This list of demands alone explains the daily conditions under which people must survive in the dungeon like prison: Continue reading →

Like this:

On Saturday the 14th August, special police forces violently raided 3 squatted social centers and many private homes in 5 communes in the cities of Santiago and Valparaíso in Chile. The police intimidated people with weapons of war, broke windows and doors, and took many personal items from the houses. 14 people were detained without being informed of the reason for their detention for 3 hours.

Later 6 people were released on probation for lack of evidence against them. As for the people that remain imprisoned, they were put in isolation cells in maximum security jails where they are awaiting a 180 day-long investigation process and potentially a 20-year sentence for alledged illegal terrorist association. Continue reading →